encouraging liars and cheats to lie and cheat aint my bag. That how I see voting and thats why I don't do it. Maybe it's different over there but in the uk its about power - they want your vote, they don't want to help make the country a better place, they want power and influence and it's written all over their fucking faces. We don't even have a 'lesser of 2 evils' option - its just cunts all the way down

Why, yes, they're all the same. Enjoy your war.

This.

I have no problem encouraging liars and cheats, provided they are (theoretically) going to do less damage than the liars and cheats I'm not encouraging.

In promotion of the site I DJ at and of my own bad self, here's a mix of oldschool hardcore (and a Squarepusher tune). And if you like it, check out my show every Thursday from 10-12 GMT (5-7 EST), where I play oldschool, dnb, and so much more.

I just read this article on Rick Warren's church though the magic of Stumbleupon, and it got me thinking: how could we adopt the "small, personal group" model that has worked so well for evangelical Christians, Communists, and AA?

Did you read the article? What struck me about it is that it seems to be about GROWTH. Spreading the word.

Did you? Of course it was about growth, but the point was pointing out the effectiveness of that model of growth, not just "spreading the word"

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With most decentralized movements/organizations, it seems like the small communal element is key to their success with spreading.

Do you see what I'm responding to, and what I'm objecting to?

I think that the cabal system is great, especially because it IS so decentralized and unorganized and each cell is it's own entity, free to make its mission whatever they want. Networking is grand, too, and larger group projects... if I didn't think so I wouldn't be here.

The idea of tackling, as a group, a question like "how do we facilitate the spread of Discordianism", on the other hand, makes me deeply uncomfortable, to the point where I want to make my opinion about it clear up front. I won't participate. If other people do, I will probably mostly ignore it, as I have thus far mostly ignored other efforts to "recruit". If it becomes more pervasive than I'm comfortable with, I'll simply find something else to do with my time.

Just sayin'.

I'm not sure what the big deal here is at all. I understand that there's nothing wrong with not liking the potential for proselytization, but it seems like we're wasting potential if we don't try to get the good ideas we have to spread.

I just read this article on Rick Warren's church though the magic of Stumbleupon, and it got me thinking: how could we adopt the "small, personal group" model that has worked so well for evangelical Christians, Communists, and AA? One problem I'm seeing with the methods we're proposing is that they tend to focus on either mass action, or one on one mindfuckery, without much of the tight knit cells that seem to work so well.

With most decentralized movements/organizations, it seems like the small communal element is key to their success with spreading. The problem with that though, is adapting that model to antiauthoritarian, dogma-free ideology, seeing as most successful decentralized movements have a core set of dogma. The most obvious solution would be to keep the basic "think for yourself, schmuck" catma, but try to encourage small group action more, in whatever way we can. Another possible route is through shared experience, rather than shared dogma, but then the question is what experience could bring together similarly minded people? Past attempts (i.e. hippies in the 60's) used the psychedelic experience, but when smoking weed or dropping acid spread to where it was commonplace, the novelty wore off and it stopped bringing people together nearly as much.

It's also possible to strip Discordianism down to the barest of bare bones (much like how Warren stripped Christianity down to a simply interpreted, theologically light "Purpose Driven" format), and get Discordian franchises going. Rather than trying to sell it from business to consumer, go business to business, again, the way Warren has. But then there's the emphasis on "everybody's a pope" and "start your own damn religion" that's messed that approach up in the past. The very nature of the idea makes it impossible to get us to act on anything but an individual scale.

Yeah, so I read this over, and I figured it's probably a repost, and doesn't come up with any concrete ideas, but I figure this might start some discussion.

I read a bit more of Illuminatus! Last night. I am enjoying it on some levels, but man, what is up with the obsession almost all "progressive" male writers of that era have with sex as some sort of gateway to enlightenment?

Because sex is fun. If you can get it by selling it as "a gateway to enlightenment", men will do so.Or maybe it's just a part of getting caught up in the backlash towards puritanical ideas about sex. Probably both.